Tag: Reviews

Harry Styles’ Harry’s House Is a Beguiling Homage to ‘80s Pop Full of Romance and Regret

Since the release of his debut solo single “Sign of The Times,” Harry Styles has made it clear that the (one) direction he would be heavily inspired by classic rock. The McCartney-meets-Queen power ballad was just a jumping-off point—a marker of taste that was broader than his days as a One Directioner. All the while, […]

May 20, 2022
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The Smile Builds an Alternate Universe Radiohead on A Light for Attracting Attention

Fifty-nine seconds into “The Same,” the first track from The Smile’s debut release A Light for Attracting Attention, the unmistakable voice of Thom Yorke begins singing about how “we are all the same” atop a sci-fi pulse of piano, acoustic guitar, and analog synthesizers. There’s no easy release from the tension of the song’s slowly […]

May 13, 2022
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Redveil Comes of Age on learn 2 swim

Most people at rapper-producer redveil’s age are working on an identity outside a prescribed cycle of routines–at school, at work, at home–to ready themselves for the independence and uncertainties of early adulthood. On the Maryland artist’s latest project, learn 2 swim, released on his 18th birthday, this search has been a public as well as […]

May 2, 2022
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Paul McCartney Kicks Off His Tour in Spokane With a Little Help From His Friends

The emotion started welling up during, of all songs, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” Something about the sight of a gaggle of teen girls, singing the nonsense chorus of that White Album classic started to crack my critical resolve. By the time Paul McCartney hit the chords of “Hey Jude,” already two-plus hours into the opening night of […]

April 29, 2022
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Melody’s Echo Chamber’s Emotional Eternal Offers a Cure for a Dour Present

When we first met Melody Prochet, the Paris-based singer-songwriter wasn’t mourning love lost; she was patiently feeding lost love to a sonic kaleidoscope and minting a DayGlo, beat-assisted species of shoegaze as lush, warm, and candied as Cam’ron’s 2002-2005 wardrobe or an interactive Yayoi Kusama installation. Her project’s 2012 debut remains a psychoactive magic carpet […]

April 29, 2022
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Bloc Party Relishes in Their Signature Sound on Alpha Games

When Bloc Party released their debut studio album, Silent Alarm, in 2005, it garnered the kind of praise that young, bright-eyed musicians fantasize about. Earnest comparisons to legendary acts like Blur, U2 and The Cure were just the beginning. They, alongside bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads, were considered an intricate part of indie […]

April 28, 2022
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One Nation Under a Stylus

Vinyl Nation, a new documentary from directors Kevin Smokler and Christopher Boone, is, as the title may suggest, as much a chronicle about a growing community than it is about the medium of vinyl records. To be clear, the history of vinyl pressing, from its early market dominance to its later decline due to the […]

April 27, 2022
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